1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a surface treating apparatus and an image recording apparatus provided with the surface treating apparatus which apparatuses can easily and effectively give, by using a simple unit, a desired surface property to various sheet bodies.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, various processes were carried out using processes such as silver halide photography, heat developing process, ink-jet recording process, heat sensitive recording process, electrophotography, and the like. Such technologies are, however, not known to have a simple unit for effectively controlling a surface property of a sheet obtained by the above various recording processes. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 10-236086 discloses the following image forming process. An image which is written in an intermediate recording medium based on image information is accumulated on an image forming body, followed by a heating-pressing, to thereby form an image on the image forming body. In the above process according to the JP-A No. 10-236086, a heating-melting transfer ink layer containing a heat-foaming material is used for carrying out a heating-melting transfer recording, followed by the above heating-pressing for transferring or adhering. In the transferring or the adhering, the above conventional technology proposes to use foaming for embossing the image of the heating-melting transfer ink layer containing the heat-foaming material.
The proposal of the JP-A No. 10-236086 transferring the image to the intermediate recording medium needs cleaning of the intermediate recording medium after the transferring. Moreover, adhering the image for every transferring by the heating and pressing thickens an image recording body, thus losing an intrinsic feeling of the image recording body, which is problematical.
With the above background, such a surface treating apparatus is yet to be obtained as can easily and effectively give, by using a simple unit, a desired surface property to various sheet bodies. Providing of the above surface treating apparatus is desired.